Chapter 42
I wake up bleary-eyed and heavy in my own room, sunlight streaming from the windows onto my face. Despite how many blinks it takes to wipe the blur from my vision, I feel very clear-headed.
The faerie poison isn’t controlling me anymore.
I sit up. I’m no longer in that sack of leaves, but a soft nightgown. Courtesy of Dottie, who helped me to bed last night. The fae women told me it was a beautiful gown, but no matter how I looked at it, it was a sack of leaves, exposing most of my legs and arms, and plenty of the rest of me where the stitching failed. Perhaps some of the tiny residual bits of magic I apparently have allowed me to see the garment for what it was, and yet in that moment, I couldn’t care. Even though a tiny voice in the back of my mind railed at me for being so indecent, it was like that part was locked in a glass vault.
I almost wish I didn’t remember what happened. That I didn’t remember the fool I was with them, with Ash. The way I begged him to kiss me. The way he caved, kissing me with such tormented passion, I was left breathless.
I’m glad he pulled away when he did. I never would have kissed him if I hadn’t been so intoxicated. I would have been reeling still from the banquet, the throne room. The realization that Ash was only a few steps away from being no better than the High King.
I told him I planned to run away. I told him practically everything.
My feet ache from dozens of tiny cuts. When I try to stand, they hurt even more. I pull them back under the covers. Just for a moment. I lean back against the bedframe, staring out the windows at the fairy garden beyond. So beautiful, so magical. My little herbs on the sill are spilling out of their containers, growing faster than I ever believed possible. I’ll have to repot them soon.
I don’t want to give up on Faerieland, on Ash.
I want to do everything in my power to make this work.
But I just cannot shake the feeling that this is so much bigger than I can understand, that the prudent thing is to slip away before it’s too late. I have no place in this game of immortals—except as a pawn. A piece on the gameboard for him to maneuver. It’s time I recognized that.
I might be a favored piece. Even a beloved one. But I’m still a piece.
That’s when the memory hits me. Ash’s bargain. My people. The invasion. Amelia.
Oh, heavens have mercy.
I throw off the blankets, ignore the pain in my feet as I shove open the door, race through the bedroom, and into the hallway. I glance around, panting, then make a beeline for the closed door of Ash’s study.
Grabbing the handle, I twist and shove. The door swings wide.
Ash is draped half across his desk, his head barely propped up by his hand. He wears a snug pair of trousers and a white shirt that is rolled up to his elbows and gaping wide at the throat, revealing quite a bit of muscular chest. Stubble lines his jaw, his hair a disheveled disaster, and when he lifts his eyes to me, they’re sunken in shadows.
He’s a mix of disastrous fae beauty and sleep deprivation.
Was he telling the truth when he said fae don’t need as much sleep as humans, or does he just run himself ragged?
A mirthless smile tilts his lips. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, sweet darling. Come to berate me for my conduct last night?”
Heady memories of his mouth on mine, on my neck, his hands in my hair flood me. My stomach flips, my face going hot. I shove it all away. “My people!” I burst, wringing my hands. “Aursailles! We have to—”
“The High King accepted my bargain.”
I stop. “What?”
“He accepted my bargain to delay the conquest.”
His voice is dull, his shoulders slumped, his eyes empty of their usual fire.
“You don’t look happy.”
He lifts one sardonic brow. “Should I be?”
He’s slipping into that darkness again. If he falls too far, I won’t be able to reach him. I lower my voice. “What aren’t you telling me, Ash?”
A dark grin spreads across his face and he plants his hand flat on his desk, lifting the rest of his body with some effort, until he’s leaning back in his chair. Staring at me. I cross my arms over my chest, wishing I’d thought to grab a robe before barreling in here in nothing but a nightgown.
“Where should I begin?” he asks, trailing his ringed finger along the smooth edge of the knife resting on his desk. “I’m considering remarrying.”
My stomach bottoms out. Even so, I don’t move. I don’t speak. Later, I’ll let the hurt and betrayal wash over me. For now, I keep my spine straight.
“If I can’t get the High King off the throne by Lulythinar, I am bound by an oath stronger than death to destroy the human continent.”
That, at least, I knew. I knew that was the risk we took fighting for a delay.
He pushes up on his desk, unfolding to his full height. He regards me with that cold smile. The one that he wears before his father. The one that isn’t him at all.
Unless . . . maybe it is more him than his sweetness ever was.
He takes three steps toward me. Slow, prowling footsteps. I don’t flinch, even as warning bells go off in my mind. This isn’t him; this isn’t him, my mind keeps begging. I shut those protests down.
This is him. I need to stop hiding from the truth.
“I know the tailor told you to send for a white dress if you need to escape,” he growls. Two more steps, and he’s towering over me. Then, he lifts one hand over my shoulder, plants it on the open door behind me, and shuts it with a slam. Pinning me in the space between his arms.
I tilt my head back, meeting the force of his gaze with my own. I’m desperately aware of my own smallness, of his power, his sheer magnitude. He may be so much larger than me, so much stronger. His shoulders alone may dwarf me.
But I will not cower.
I glare up at him, at his beautiful, twisted face leaning over me.
“It would simplify things for me if you sent that request,” he says, lifting his other hand toward my face, dragging the tips of his fingers in a scalding line from my temple to the hollow of my throat. “Then I wouldn’t have to arrange smuggling you out of here.” He twists a lock of my hair between his fingers, his eyes never leaving mine. “I have dreams about you, you know. Ever since I married you, when I sleep, you’re there. Like a light at the end of a tunnel. Your smile, your eyes. In the very best dreams, you laugh.” He leans closer, ducking his head and nuzzling his nose against my ear. “I love your laugh. It’s the sweetest, most beautiful sound.”
My back hits the door. I didn’t mean to retreat, but here I am, fighting to keep my breathing steady. “You shouldn’t say these things.”
“Why not?” His breath ghosts my skin. “You’re my wife.”
“You just said you’re going to remarry,” I gasp.
“I said I was considering it. As an alternative to keeping you here, where only death awaits you.”
“Exactly,” I breathe when his lips trail along my jaw. “You shouldn’t be saying these things if you’re going to send me away and marry someone else.”
“It’s not safe for me to have you, but that’s not the same as me not wanting you.” He wraps a hand around my waist and pulls me against him. I can hardly breathe when his low voice murmurs, “And Great Kings, Stella, I want you.”
I close my eyes against the pressure building in my chest. “You’re just determined to make this as difficult as possible, aren’t you?”
“Why do something the simple way when you can make it twice as complicated and ten times more miserable?” he murmurs against my neck.
And it’s those words, that scrap of dry humor, that give me sudden hope. The Ash I know is still here. He’s buried beneath so much darkness—he’s lost in that cave. But he’s not gone. He’s still with me.
Last night’s words ring in my head. It’s not my hatred of the High King that is greater than my love for you. It’s my fear of losing you.
I take hold of his face in both my hands and push him back. Just enough to look him in the eye. “Ash, you need to take back your fear. You need to take your life back into your own hands. Your father is the cruelest man I’ve ever met, but you get to decide whether you want to be his victim or not.”
He stares at me, his eyes widening a fraction. The wintry smile vanishes.
“You’re afraid of him,” I continue, letting the force of my own will burn through my words. “And your fear gives him power over you. All these games you play with him are your attempts to prove you’re not afraid, but none of them get to the root of it! None of them makes you truly overcome your fear of him. You can kill him, and you’ll find it still doesn’t cure you of your fear. Because you must face it to overcome it.”
His hand on the door clenches into a fist, his jaw hardening. A storm brews behind his eyes, ready to blast through his barricades and decimate everything in its path. And the strange thing is . . . I’m not afraid of it.
He shoves off the door, putting space between us as he rakes a hand through his hair, breathing hard. His shoulders quake, his free hand trembling in midair. When he speaks, his voice is like the night itself.
“He killed my mother.”
I stay where I am at the door, listening. Waiting.
He drags his hand through his hair again, catching the ends of it in a clenched fist. “He killed my mother!”
Tears spring to my eyes, but I don’t move.
“She loved me, Stella.” He bares his teeth at the bookshelf, shoulders bowing, refusing to look at me. Tears slide down his cheeks and drip off his nose. “She loved me. And he took her away from me. For a stupid reason. Because he sent me this silly mask he wanted me to wear for a ball, and I didn’t want to wear it. I wanted to wear my own mask, the one I liked. It was the stupidest thing, Stella. I was a willful idiot, but I didn’t think he’d . . . If I’d just worn the Kings-cursed mask, she would have lived. She wouldn’t have died. She could be here now. I could have introduced her to you. She would have loved you. Oh, how she would have loved you!”
I bow my head and stick my knuckle between my teeth. Tears stream down my cheeks as I bite. Hard.
“He had her killed right in front of me. She was dressed in red, with a ruby-studded mask. All ready for the ball. Father and I had an argument about my mask—we argued about everything. And then, before I could react, he’d drawn his sword and stabbed her in the chest.” His words break off into sobs, and he bows himself over his knees. It’s a strange thing to see one so mighty reduced to such soul-deep heartbreak. The next words are spat out with disgust. “I wailed like a baby.”
He shoots up then, and begins prowling around the enclosed space as if it’s a cage, and him, a tiger. “He killed her. He killed her! Even though she’d done nothing wrong. From the moment she was given in marriage to him, she did everything to please him. He should have loved her. He should have cared for her. He should have cared for me. I’m his son! His very flesh and blood! But he loved neither of us, and when he saw how much I loved my mother, he destroyed her.”
His words strike a chord in me. And I understand. I understand what it is to be betrayed by the father who should have been the protector. Who should have had the fiercest commitment to love. I cannot fix his pain or take it away.
I can weep, however. I can feel his pain, join him in it, bear it with him.
“Stella.” The name is ragged, a shredded piece of despair as he lifts destitute eyes to me. “In those dreams that I have of you, when you smile and laugh . . . They always end with you dying. It’s you in that red dress and red mask. It’s your blood that is everywhere. I see it over and over again—every time I close my eyes. I’m helpless to stop it. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve tried to think of a way to spare you? From our first conversation, I’ve hated myself for dragging you into this. I thought losing you would be like losing the rest of my staff. It would hurt, but I’d pretend to not care. I never thought that marrying you would make me see what life could be like if I wasn’t caught in this trap. This nightmare. I was content before. Content with my games and my revenge.” His voice breaks again, and then he throws his arms to either side, and the words are ripped from him in a terrifying shout.
“I don’t want my revenge anymore, Stella! I just want you.”